Together with my fellow contryman, Renny Granda, public libraries’ own knight, we published the third part of the Caracas Trilogy (see first part and second part), where we invite you to reflect upon the question: could public spaces and libraries help us reducing violence in Latin American cities?

Abstract: The Caracas Metropolitan Strategic Plan 2020 (CMSP2020) is an instance of urban and environmental planning that seeks to construct a collective ‘city pact’ for Caracas, currently among the most troubled and violent cities in Latin America. Its main idea is to recover the city through the rescue of its public spaces, by centering on six strategic axes for transforming Caracas: accessibility and mobility; public safety, public spaces and housing improvement; environmental sustainability; productivity and entrepreneurship; governability; and the development of a constructive and responsible citizenship. This model, partly inspired by Medellin’s Library Parks, may be useful for other large cities in the region that suffer similar socio-political fractures, as well as accessibility, mobility, environmental, productive, governance and safety issues.

From Caracas to Lyon: A road toward sustainable development?Further expanding on topics around public libraries (and as a sister issue to a previous column), together with Renny Granda we ask if the Caracas Declaration for the Public Library (1982) and the Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development (2014) can allow us to follow a path toward s […]

Scientific production in Mexican universities: Rates and expectations toward competitiveness Together with Javier Tarango, we analyze issues of scientific production in Mexican universities. Abstract: This article analyzes emerging issues that Mexican universities are experiencing with scientific production processes, their impact on assessment indicators th […]

Latin American science is meant to be open access: Initiatives and current challenges Together with Dominique Babini, we summarize the rise of open access in the region and its main initiatives. Abstract: Latin American open access (OA) initiatives were built upon the foundations laid by the regional cooperative information networks, databases and indexes th […]

Thinking outside of literacy: Moving beyond traditional information literacy activities Abstract: A brief reflection on what might be becoming the traditional way of conducting information and digital literacy activities, together with some recommendations in order to move beyond these traditional grounds. This reflection is framed within this age of social […]

Developing Latin America: Is information enough to save the region? Abstract:Latin America does not exist. These 42 diverse and developing countries are hardly a union. However, they share geographical proximity, history, strangely unique elements, and the wish to progress. This first issue of a new column, ‘Developing Latin America’, explores some informati […]

Articles for the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) http://wp.me/s7eWr-ecil2013 The first European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL) took place on 22-25 October 2013, in Istambul, Turkey. I proposed two papers for this conference and I had the opportunity to get both accepted. It was great to have two papers selected among the quite i […]